Ryan Air Objects

TERRORISTS are “rolling around the caves of Pakistan, laughing” at Britain’s response to the terror threat, an airline boss said last night as he gave the government a seven-day deadline to relax restrictions or face legal action.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary described some of the security measures as “farcical, Keystone Kops-like and completely insane and ineffectual”.

Pilots also attacked the measures, which ban them from taking toothpaste on to aircraft, and said subjecting flight crews to the same restrictions as passengers made “no sense at all”.

An estimated 800,000 passengers have been disrupted by the chaos caused by new measures, which resulted in massive queues at airports and led to the cancellations of about 1,800 flights.

Ryanair demanded the government return passenger-search requirements to pre-alert levels. It also wants the government to restore the hand-luggage allowance for passengers leaving British airports, and an assurance that military and police personnel would be released to help with airport security checks next time there is a major alert.

Mr O’Leary yesterday gave the government a seven-day deadline to make the changes or face legal action, arguing that some of the security measures had been stupid and it was “completely untenable” to expect airport staff to continue working flat-out to cope with the new regulations.

But at least Ryan Air has a sense of humor about the situation. Here’s their graphic — very graphic — take on the absurdity of new airport security procedures.